


Empty Vessel

by xhbx



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Angst, Gen, Vignette, she'd probably shank you for it but still, someone give this girl a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 02:55:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10504968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xhbx/pseuds/xhbx
Summary: So this is freedom.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Is this so short that it's hardly worth it? Maybe!

So this is freedom. 

Mara stares out the canopy of her Z-95 Headhunter, seeing nothing. The ship’s comm unit is silent, but at any moment she expects it to crackle to life and for Coruscant air control to give her clearance for lift off. The _Wild Karrde_ is waiting to rendezvous in orbit before it jumps off elsewhere, leaving Mara to her new duties as the Smugglers’ Alliance liaison. 

Kicking off the Smugglers’ Alliance has kept her so busy that there’s been little time for introspection. But every now and then she has a moment to herself to realize just how _quiet_ it is now. She’d heavily felt the silence following the Emperor’s death, but she’d still had the cycles of his command periodically interrupting it. And she’d clung to those, even though they disturbed her. Now, even the last vestiges of the Emperor are gone.

The ship’s comm pops and Mara starts, but it makes no further sound so she settles back, eyes now focusing on the Palace that stands before her, beautiful and brooding. 

Once, she had known every hall, every back passage, of the Palace. She’d swept through ballrooms draped in finery. She’d skulked through hidden doorways into ambassadorial suites to arrange “accidental” deaths. She’d stood in shadows on the rooftop and looked out across the city, feeling powerful and fearless. She’d heard his strong, commanding voice from anywhere and was never truly alone—and yes, perhaps she had loved him. 

That life is gone now; worse, it never existed. All lies, so there is nothing to look back on with any sort of pleasure, even a bittersweet one. Instead, his betrayal is a cold star somewhere in her belly, flaring with dying light every time she walks through the Palace, when a stray memory surfaces and she must look at it with new eyes, reframe it as the dupe and not the agent. She’d been proud of her service, but in truth she had lived her life in a gilded cage. 

She has since broken her shackles, scraped and scrounged for every inch of her new freedom—but with this triumph, she has never felt so defeated. 

The comm unit snaps to life, and Mara has her clearance. She gives herself a small shake to rid the ghosts. Runs through her final systems checks, pulls back on the yoke, and heads for the nothingness of space.


End file.
